Providing collected profiles to media properties having specified interests

ABSTRACT

To improve monetization of electronic advertisement placement, a profile owner company operates an automatic system for identifying media properties that have interests in specific profiles or profiles of a specified category or kind. The profile owner recognizes a collected visitor profile as one that a media property has previously requested or one that is within a category that a media property has previously requested and arranges for the visitor to be tagged with a tag readable by the media property that requested such a profile. The media property can use the tag in displaying customized advertising to the visitor. Using information received from the media property, the profile owner company then records usage of the profile by the media property.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of application Ser. No. 11/765,433,filled Jun. 19, 2007, now U.S. Pat. No. 8,280,758, which claims thebenefit of provisional application Ser. No. 60/805,114, filed Jun. 19,2006, which is incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The present invention generally relates to profile-based behavioraltargeting advertisement placement services. More specifically, thepresent invention relates to improving monetization of electronicadvertisement placement.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

DoubleClick's “Boomerang” is a service for advertisers that places acookie on computers of visitors to an advertiser's site for the purposeof finding those visitors on other sites where DoubleClick is the adserver (“ad” is short for advertisement). When the same visitors arefound on those other sites, additional advertiser's ads are served tothem by the DoubleClick ad sever or by the advertiser's ad serverfollowing a redirect from the DoubleClick ad server.

The only server that can read a cookie on a user's computer is a serveroperating under the same domain as the server that placed the cookie ona user's computer to begin with. In other words, a cookie placed by aserver operating under one domain cannot be read by another serverworking under a separate domain. That is why the advertiser cannotexpect to place a cookie of its own (e.g., ford.com cookie) on a visitorto its site and then later expect the DoubleClick ad server(doubleclick.com) to be able to recognize the visitor when that visitoris visiting sites where DoubleClick serves ads by reading the ford.comcookies. Only a server operating under the DoubleClick domain can read acookie placed by a server operating under the DoubleClick domain. So,DoubleClick needs to place a doubleclick.com cookie on visitors to theford.com site for DoubleClick to later find those visitors within othersites, i.e., where the DoubleClick ad server is used to serve ads.

For a site to have its ad served by an ASP-hosted ad server, such as theone operated by DoubleClick, the site needs to redirect visitors fromthe site to the DoubleClick ad server, to fetch the ad from the server.Following the redirect from the site, the visitor accesses theDoubleClick ad server. Because the DoubleClick server is operating underthe DoubleClick domain, it can read the DoubleClick cookie or cookiesand then recognize that it encountered the same visitor in the past. Inthis example, the DoubleClick ad server recognizes the visitor assomeone who visited the ford.com site.

AlmondNet, Tacoda, RevenueScience, and other companies (herein “BTcompanies”; “BT” stands for behavioral targeting) specialize intargeting ads based on observed behavior of sites' visitors. To record avisitor's observed behavior, a BT company places a cookie (or cookies)on the computers of visitors to specific sections of a publisher'swebsite or on the computers of visitors of the publisher who conducted aspecific action such as search, click content, click an ad, make a phonecall, request information, acquire a product, etc.

The placement of cookies allows those publishers or the BT companyitself to sell ads to advertisers. Those ads will be presented to theprofiled visitors when they are found later on the same site or on othersites. Such sites can be either a site where the BT company's softwareis used or a site where the BT company has bought media. The BT companymay buy the media on behalf of itself or on behalf of the publisher, whois interested in delivering ads to its audience outside the publisher'ssite.

Although a BT company (AlmondNet, Tacoda, RevenueScience, etc.) acts asan agent that places cookies on the computers of publisher's visitorsfor the purpose of delivering targeted ads to the publisher's visitorson other sites, the publisher can work without an agent and placecookies or tags on the computers of the publisher's own visitors for thepurpose of delivering ads to those visitors on other sites where thepublisher buys ad space. Such a publisher, acting without an agent, isalso included in the definition of a BT company.

A publisher may also be referred to as a “profile supplier” when ittransfers profile information, such as behavioral information,demographic information, etc., to a BT company. Therefore, a publisherthat is a BT company may also be its own profile supplier. Furthermore,although the name “BT company” implies the targeting of ads is based oncollected behavioral profiles, a BT company may also collect other kindsof profile information, such as demographic information or user-providedinformation, and target ads to those visitors wherever found based onthe collected profile information.

Another kind of a BT company is a company that has software installed ona person's computer, such as toolbar software, desktop search software,weather software, or any kind of software that is used by the computer'suser. Such software also monitors the computer user's visits todifferent publishers' sites and media properties and collects profileinformation about the computer user for the purpose of delivering ads tothe user within ad space of sites and media properties that the uservisits based on the collected profiles.

A BT company using software installed on a user's computer does not needthe cooperation of a visited media property to collect information aboutthe visitor's visit because that software monitors whatever the user isdoing on his or her computer. A BT company that has software installedon a user's computer is therefore its own profile supplier. Suchsoftware can place a cookie or another kind of tag on the user'scomputer. Because the software is installed on the user's computer, itcan write cookies readable by any domain. That means that the BT companycan place a tag or cookie of a second media property, if the BT companywould like the second media property to recognize the visitor when thevisitor visits that second media property site, by simply having thesoftware place a cookie operating under the domain of the secondproperty on the visitor's computer. The software may also report thecollected profiles to a central server of the BT company.

The central server may also tag the visitor or arrange for the visitorto be tagged by operators of other media properties. A BT company canplace a cookie on a site's section when a visitor's computer visits thatsection, if a code of the company was integrated into the page of thatsection by the site that owns the page. The code (e.g., HTML or Java)redirects to the BT company's server all visitors to the page. Also, inthe case that the BT company is the publisher itself, the publisher willsimply “cookie” (by itself) all visitors that either read a specificcontent, search, click, ask for information, make a phone call, etc.

The BT company's server, which either gave the site a unique code for apage, received from the page its URL, or received access to the page'scontent that could be analyzed by the BT company's server, etc.,identifies the content read by the page's visitor, the keyword searchedfor by the user, an ad clicked on the page, a content item clicked onthe page, a phone call that was made that was initiated from the page,information that was requested, or a product was acquired, etc. Thecontent read by the page visitor could be identified by the BT company'sserver whether the content was reported by the site or whether thecontent was identified following the analysis of the page. The serverthen places a cookie on the user's computer indicating what content wasread by the visitor on the page, what keyword was searched for by theuser, or what ad was clicked on the page, etc. The placed cookieindicates that information (1) in the cookie per se, (2) in a centraldatabase operated by the server where the cookie ID is used as a recordfinder, or (3) both in the cookie and in the database.

Although the above description relates to cookies, a cookie is only oneexample of a possible tag. A tag generally is a unique identifier usedto mark a person electronically visiting a media property, such as a website, TV channel, radio show, or the like, using a computer, a mobiledevice, a TV set, a TV set top box, or any other device.

The tag is used for the purpose of delivering additional ads to avisitor to one media property when that visitor is found later on othermedia properties, based on the visitor's profile collected on the firstmedia property. The profile could be the observed behavior of thevisitor on the media property, demographic information collected on themedia property, profile information provided by the visitor to the mediaproperty, etc. The profile could be made available to the other mediaproperties.

Because the purpose of the tag is to enable the delivery of additionalads on other media properties visited by the visitor, and because thedelivery of an ad requires only control of the ad space and notnecessarily control of the entire media property visited by the visitor,a media property (in the present context) can also be defined as anyequipment that controls an ad space viewed by a visitor, including a website, an ad network's site (where the ad network represents the ad spaceof different sites), a TV program, some of the ad space within TVprograms or TV channels (represented by a cable company), a TV network,or any ad space for which an entity is allowed to sell an advertisementand deliver it within the ad space; whether the ad space is owned bythat entity, or whether the entity pays the owner of the ad space whenusing its ad space to deliver an ad sold by the entity. Ad space can beon a web site, in a TV program, in a text message, in a radio show, inany broadcasted material, in any streaming video or audio, etc. An adspace can be a fixed position on a page, or the ad space can be madeavailable by a web site to an ad network (for example) only when the website did not sell all of the site's ad inventory and therefore wishes tomake some of the inventory available to the ad network.

In the case of a media property controlling an ad space viewed by avisitor, a specific ad space on a page might be controlled onlytemporarily. For example, in the case of the web site that did not sellall the ad impressions available to be delivered within an ad space on apage and therefore makes the unsold ad space available to the ad networkto fill, the ad network will have temporary control of the ad space,i.e., when that ad space is given to it by the web site. Once the siteredirects the ad space on the page to the ad network (so the ad networkcould fill the ad space with an ad sold by the ad network), the adnetwork controls the ad space and has access to the visitor viewing thead space that was redirected to the ad network by the site, andtherefore the ad network's equipment is considered a media property, asit controls an ad space viewed by a visitor.

The tag can be placed on the device used by the user to access the firstmedia property where the user's profile was collected (in case ofobserved behavior, that behavior can be reading a specific content,searching, clicking an ad or content, making a phone call, asking forproduct information, acquiring a product, or taking any other kind ofaction). A tag placed on the device (1) could be read only by a serveroperating under the same domain as the server that placed the tag on thedevice to begin with as in the case of a cookie for example, (2) couldbe placed on the device when the user visited the first media property,and then the tag can be read by any second media property visited by thevisitor, or (3) could be encrypted and, while accessed by any secondmedia property visited by the visitor, the tag could be deciphered onlyby second media property computers that received the deciphering codefrom the first media property. In case of a tag placed by softwareinstalled on a user's computer, the tag could be whatever the softwarewants it to be, including a cookie of any domain.

A tag does not have to be placed on the user's device. A tag can also beused in a central database of a BT company or a central database of anysecond media property visited by the visitor, where the tag could be aunique identifier either of the device or of the user. In the case wherethe tag identifies the device, the tag might denote an IP address, aphone number, a device's manufacturer serial number, etc. A cookieplaced on the device can also uniquely identify the device and thecookie therefore can be used as a tag in a central database. In the casewhere the tag identifies the user, the tag might denote the username andpassword used to access a media property, a user's name and address, auser's e-mail, a user's social security number, or any other personalidentifiable information.

As already mentioned, the observed behavior of a visitor to a firstmedia property is referred to as profile information about a specificvisitor. A visitor's profile might be enhanced by the visitors' observedbehavior on other media properties or by other profile informationcollected on other media properties.

A visitor's profile can be represented by a unique tag, or the profilecan be stored with the tag, whether the tag is placed on the device, ona central database, or both. For example, the profile can be storedwithin a cookie (tag) on a visitor's device, or the profile can bestored in a central database where the tag connected to the profile isused as a unique identifier of the visitor's device or of the visitorpersonally. The profile can also be saved on both the device and acentral database.

Some 50% to 80% of the ad space on the Internet is considered difficultto monetize, as it is located next to content that tends to be moregeneralized, such as general news, web based e-mails, instant messages,music or files downloading sites, and software. Advertisers are notwilling to pay a high price for delivering an ad to visitors of suchsites, as they do not know how many of those sites' visitors arepotential clients for their products and services. By contrast,advertisers prefer the placement of ads on dedicated content sites, suchas a travel site. For example, an airline is willing to pay a high priceper ad on a travel site, as it knows that the ad will be delivered topeople who are currently searching for flying tickets. The same is truefor TV, where a significant proportion of the ad space is within TVprograms where the audience is heterogeneous. It is also true for radioshows and other kind of media.

Using profiles for the delivery of targeted ads within theabove-described low-value ad space can turn the low-value ad space intohigh-value ad space by delivering ads to users that are based onpreviously collected profiles of the users, rather than ads that arerelated to the content on the page they are viewing. For example, a “carinsurance” related ad, delivered to a person who yesterday searched for“car insurance” within the ad space of a general news page the person iscurrently reading, will be much more relevant to the person than an adrelated to the general news he or she is reading.

The BT companies are described above as collecting profiles and laterdelivering ads to the profiled visitors when found on other sites. Theads delivered by the BT company to the profiled visitors are either soldby the BT company, which pays royalties to the profile suppliers thatprovided it with profiles whenever ads presented to their audiencegenerate revenues, or paid for by a publisher that is interested indelivering ads to its own audience outside its site and is paying the BTcompany to find its audience on other sites. As described, the publishermight be the BT company itself.

In addition, where the collected profiles are mainly used to delivertargeted ads within low-value ad space that is acquired from low-valuead space owners, and the ads are delivered by the BT company, there isalso the opportunity to make the collected profiles available tolow-value ad space owners, because, instead of selling their low-valuead space to the profile owners, such ad space owners would prefer tomonetize their low-value ad space better by themselves, by using thecollected profiles to sell targeted ads, delivered to the profiledvisitors when found within such low-value ad space.

A low-value ad space owner could be any media property owner, whether itowns a web site, a TV program, a radio show, or any other mediaproperty. Also, “low-value” ad space is a relative term. Because adspace prices are usually a function of the content next to the ad space,if a profile-based ad garners a higher price for the ad space owner thanan ad based on the adjacent content, then the ad space value isconsidered “low value” (i.e., in relative terms, relative to the pricethe ad space will garner if used for delivery of a profile-based ad).

As described, for example, in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 6,925,440,(A) profile owners (i.e., who either own the profiles or have the rightto resell the profiles on behalf of another profile owner) can provide adatabank with access to visitors and their profiles, and (B) either (i)the databank enhances its existing profile on a visitor with a profileowner's profile information about the visitor or (ii) a profile ownerenhances the profile it has on a visitor with the databank's profileinformation about the visitor, where the profile information is given inreturn for royalties paid for every later usage of the profileinformation for the delivery of targeted ads to the visitor based on theprofile (for example).

Although the invention of the '440 Patent provides a media property withadditional information about its visitors, several possible challengesarise:

1. If a media property (if acting as a profile owner) wants to enhancethe profiles available to it about its visitors and thus contacts adatabank and provides it with access to the profiles, the media propertymight be wasting resources: First, the databank might have no profilesabout the media property's visitors. For example, if the databank has noprofile about a visitor, the media property would have provided thedatabank access to the visitor merely to learn that fact. Second, theprofiles that the databank does have might be of no use to the mediaproperty because its sales force does not sell ads in the category inwhich the profiles belong. For example, if the databank has a profileabout the visitor and it is a health-related profile, but the mediaproperty's sales force does not sell ads in the health category, theprofile available from the databank about that visitor is of no use tothe media property.

2. The media property (if acting as a databank) may be given access by aprofile owner to many visitors to that profile owner's site for whoseprofiles the media property has no need, because the media property hasno way of monetizing profiles of those kinds. For example, if a mediaproperty's sales force specializes in selling ads in the travel andfinancial services categories, there is no use in providing them withhealth, auto, and shopping-related profiles. In cases where a largeprofile owner makes profiles available to a media property, unless themedia property has a very large sales force that specializes in sellingads in many different advertising categories, there is a significantprobability that the media property will have no use for most of theprofiles received.

3. A media property that receives profiles under the system of the '440Patent described here is committing itself to pay for every usage of areceived profile. Because many of the ads (or, depending on the way theprofile is transferred, all of the ads) are delivered by the mediaproperty after receipt of the profile, it is a challenge for the mediaproperty to track usage of the profiles. First, it is not clear which ofthe visitors (for whom the media owner received profiles) actuallyvisited the media property later on their own accord as opposed tovisiting via a redirect, for example from a databank or a profile ownerto the media property without the visitor asking for such visit or beingaware of it. In the case of a redirect from a databank's server or aprofile owner's server, a visitor's browser would simply fetch a 1×1transparent pixel from the media property's server following theredirect. Second, because it is not clear how many of the profiledvisitors will appear later within the ad space of the media property,some tracking of the usage of the profiles by the media property must beestablished. The problem becomes even more complex when the mediaproperty receives the profiles from a databank, because the databankitself aggregates profiles from other profile owners and makes thoseprofiles available to media properties, and it is not clear which of thedelivered profiled visitors will visit the media property on their ownaccord (whether for the first time or not). In that circumstance, it isnot clear how the databank will know which profile suppliers tocompensate for usage of their profiles. The problem is especiallycomplex when the databank has several profile suppliers providing itwith profiles in the same category (for example, the databank may have20 different travel sites, all allowing the databank to tag theirvisitors as “travel” visitors) and the databank gives to a mediaproperty all of the profiles from those profile suppliers within thatcategory.

Although BT companies can collect profiles and deliver ads to theprofiled visitors within low-value ad space that they buy from mediaproperties, there remains the need, therefore, to provide collectedprofiles to media properties that will better monetize their low-valuead space by selling ads based on the profiles and delivering the adswithin their ad space to the profiled visitors when those visitors visitthe media properties and making a payment for the profiles to theprofile owners who provided the profiles.

What is needed generally is a more efficient method of profile-basedbehavioral targeting advertisement placement services, particularly forimproving monetization of electronic advertisement placement.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Generally, various aspects of the disclosed embodiments relate tosystems and methods for providing collected profiles to mediaproperties, for improved monetization of electronic advertisementplacement. The methods have particular importance to media propertiesthat have interests in specific profiles or profiles of a specifiedcategory or kind.

The disclosure more specifically relates to an automatic system operatedby a profile owner company (“PO company”) for identifying mediaproperties interested in having a collected profile made available tothem. The automatic system makes the identification by recognizing acollected profile as one that a media property has previously requestedor one that is within a category that a media property has previouslyrequested. Thereafter, the PO company arranges for the visitor to betagged with a tag readable by the media property that requested such aprofile.

Using information received from the media property, the PO company thenrecords usage of the profile by the media property. When the PO companyalso acts as a databank, the PO company determines which profilesupplier will be credited for the media property's usage of the profile(i.e., the one that provided the databank with the profile that wasused) and records the credit.

In one implementation, when a media property uses a profile, the mediaproperty transfers the visitor, along with the profile it is using, tothe PO company's system, to let the PO company know which kind ofprofile was used. The media property might transfer the profile alongwith the visitor only when the media property receives from the POcompany more than one kind of profile, because it is unnecessary if themedia property receives only one kind of profile.

Because BT companies collect profiles, any BT company (defined above)could act as a PO company and make profiles available to mediaproperties, whether the PO company owns profiles directly or acts as adatabank representing other profile owners. Such other profile ownersprovide the databank with their profiles in return for (i) royaltiespaid to them whenever the profiles are used, or (ii) a payment. Anyprofile supplier (defined above) can also be a PO company.

The above summary does not include an exhaustive list of all aspects ofthe present invention. Indeed, the inventor contemplates that theinvention may include all systems and methods that can be practices fromall suitable combinations of the various aspects summarized above, aswell as those disclosed in the detailed description below andparticularly pointed out in the claims. Such combinations haveparticular advantages not specifically recited in the above summary.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a flow diagram of an exemplary embodiment of a method fortransferring collected profiles to media properties having specifiedinterests.

FIG. 2 is a schematic of an exemplary embodiment of entities andassociated data flow useful with a method of transferring collectedprofiles to media properties having specified interests.

DESCRIPTION OF PREFERRED EXEMPLARY EMBODIMENTS

In disclosed embodiments, collected profiles are made available byaccepting information about desired profiles or profile categories froma media property, identifying an electronic visitor as fitting into theprofile category, and arranging for that visitor to be tagged. Preferredadditional aspects of disclosed embodiments include automaticallyelectronically recording electronic visits by tagged visitors to a mediaproperty, determining which profile supplier will be credited for therecorded electronic visit, and crediting that profile supplier.

The method includes the following basic steps:

1. A PO company's database 12 records (FIG. 1, 1000) the profiles, orthe kind of profiles, a media property (e.g., FIG. 2, MP1) is lookingfor. The profile could be a behavioral profile, a demographic profile,or any other possible profile. For example, a media property (MP1) couldask for visitors who have searched for “car insurance” on a searchengine, visitors who were interested in “travel” (MP1(A)), or visitorswho were interested in “autos” (MP1(B)), etc. A media property cancommunicate to the PO company the profiles for which it is looking viae-mail, electronically, via mail, over the phone, or in any other way.

2. A profile supplier (e.g., FIG. 2, PS1) redirects (FIG. 1, 2000) avisitor 20 to a PO company 10 along with the visitor's profile (Pr1). Incase the profile supplier is also the PO company (see visitor 25), thisstep either does not take place or takes place internally, for examplevia an internal redirect from one server (see 11) to another server 10operating under the same domain that belongs to the publisher/POCompany. In case the PO company has software on a user's computer thatenables it to monitor the user's visits to media properties without thecooperation of the media properties, this step either does not takeplace or takes place internally, e.g., by the software on the user'scomputer communicating the collected profile to the PO company's centralserver.

3. The PO company's server 10 recognizes (3000) the content read by theuser, the category to which the content read by the user belongs, thekeyword searched for by the user, an ad clicked by the user, or anyother action conducted on the page/site by the user (such as click on anitem of content or an ad, purchase of a product, request for moreinformation, etc.) during the site visit. The recognizing might be assimple as pulling a keyword for which the visitor searched from a URLused by the profile supplier to redirect the visitor 10 to the POcompany, for example. Alternatively, the recognizing might be as simpleas recognizing the kind of content read by the visitor by recognizingthe URL used by the profile supplier to redirect the visitor to the POcompany because the URL is one that the PO company identified to theprofile supplier for use when redirecting visitors who read a specifickind of content. Recognizing of content may also be done through asemantic analysis of content of a page read by the visitor.

4. The PO company's server 10 optionally can categorize (4000) specificcontent read by the user or an action conducted by a user. In someimplementations, this step will not take place. An example action mightbe a search for a keyword. To illustrate, suppose a person searched foran airline ticket to Florida on a travel site. When the PO companyreceives that information, in addition to recording the search for theflight to Florida in the visitor's profile (whether the profile isstored in the cookie or tag, the PO company's central database 13, orboth of those places), the PO company's server 10 may further categorizethe person under the “Travel” category and in the “Search for Flights”subcategory of “Travel.” In another example, a visitor would becategorized as “searching for an airline ticket” by virtue of havingsearched for an airline ticket at least three different times within aweek, on one media property or several media properties. In thatexample, if the visitor were to have searched for an airline ticketfewer than three times within a week, the PO company's server 10 willnot categorize the visitor as “searching for an airline ticket,” becausethe visitor would be considered as less serious about the purchaseaccording to the definition in use by the PO company.

5. The PO company's server 10 identifies (5000) the media properties(e.g., MP1 and MP2) that have asked to receive a visitor having aprofile such as the one recognized in step 3 or categorized in step 4(e.g., a profile of kind “A” in FIG. 2). Thereafter, the PO companyarranges (6000) for the visitor (e.g., 20) to be tagged with a tagreadable by the identified media property (e.g., MP1 or MP2), which canuse the tag to recognize the visitor's profile.

6. Using information 40 received from the media property, the PO companythen records (7000) usage of the profile (e.g., Pr(A)) by the mediaproperty (e.g., MP2). When the PO company also acts as a databank, thePO company determines which profile supplier (PS1, PS2, . . . PSn) willbe credited for the media property's (e.g., MP2's) usage of the profileand records the credit (e.g., in data store 13).

The PO company's arranging placement of the tag (see step 5 above) canbe achieved in different ways:

A. The PO company can redirect (e.g., Pr(X), Pr(Y) in FIG. 2, in caseswhere media property MPn has expressed interest in those profiles) avisitor to the identified media property with a request to have theidentified media property tag the visitor with the media property's owntag, which obviously is readable by the selected media property (such atag could be a cookie on the visitor's storage device). The tag in thiscase could be placed by the identified media property following aredirect by the PO company to a specific URL given to the PO company bythe media property. The media property would have given the PO company,in this example, different URLs for different kind of profiles, and thePO company would choose the URL for redirecting the visitor to the mediaproperty based on the kind of profile recognized.

B. The PO company can itself place a tag (e.g., TagC denoting profile“C” in FIG. 2) that will be readable by the identified media property.

C. The PO company can place an encoded tag that, although accessible byany media property, can be read only by a selected media property towhich the PO company gave a deciphering code.

D. In cases when the PO company has software installed on a user'scomputer, the BT company can arrange for the software to place a tagreadable by the identified media property (such a tag could be a cookieoperating under the selected media property domain).

E. The PO company can arrange for the identified media property to placea tag in the identified media property's central database, in which casethe tag can uniquely identify (1) the device that the visitor will useto access the identified media (IP address, set-top box ID, mobile phonenumber, manufacturer serial number, cookie readable by the identifiedmedia property, etc.), or (2) the user as a person (personalidentifiable information).

The identified media property can use its tag to recognize the profileof the visitor either (1) by virtue of each profile having a unique tag(e.g., TagC denoting profile “C” in FIG. 2), or (2) by virtue of theprofile that was received from the PO company having been stored (a)with the tag, (b) in the tag (which can occur with a cookie), (c) in acentral database (where the tag is used as the link between the visitorand profile), or (d) in all of those places.

In another possible implementation (not shown), aside from the POcompany arranging placement of the tag readable by the identified mediaproperty, the PO company sends the profile and a copy of the tagseparately to the identified media property, which will store the tagand the profile in its central database, and when the identified mediaproperty recognizes the tag on a visitor's computer, for example, itpulls the visitor's profile from its database.

The PO company can make a profile available to a media property usingthe same methods that profile suppliers use to give their profiles to POcompanies.

When an identified media property (e.g., MP2 in FIG. 2) recognizes (attime t2) a tagged visitor (tagged previously, at time t1) within its adspace, the media property will serve an ad 30 to the visitor (e.g.,visitor 20) based on the profile provided by the PO company 10. Usually,a profile-based ad will be delivered by the media property when it willgenerate a higher price for the ad space than other ads available to themedia property for placement within the ad space.

The media properties (a profile supplier and an identified mediaproperty) can be of the same kind of media (e.g., two web sites on theInternet) or of different media (e.g., first media property, where theprofile is collected, can be a web site on the Internet, and the secondmedia property, to which the profile is given by the PO company, can bea TV channel on TV or a text message system on a mobile phone, etc.). Inthe case where the second media property operates within a differentmedia than the first media property, the tagging of the visitor with atag readable by the second media property (which is arranged by the POcompany) might include finding the device used by the visitor to accessthe second media property (the identified media property) by usingpersonal identifiable information about the visitor. As there may be noconnection between the device used by the visitor to access the firstmedia property (computer, for example) and the device used by thevisitor to access the second (identified) media property (TV, forexample) besides the commonality of the user (visitor), personallyidentifiable information about the visitor could be used to allow thesecond media property to learn which device the visitor uses to accessthe second media property and tag the visitor. The second media propertycould tag the device used by the visitor to access the second mediaproperty by placing a tag on the device itself or in a central databaseof the second media property, for example.

The process of the PO company enabling an identified media property toplace a cookie on a visitor's computer for the purpose of finding thevisitor later within the ad space of the identified media property issimilar to the way DoubleClick's Boomerang system places cookies onvisitors to an advertiser site for the purpose of finding those visitorslater on other sites where Doubleclick serves ads. That process—whereidentified media properties place cookies on visitors' computersredirected to them by PO companies—is sometimes referred to as “cookiematching.”

For example, following a redirect (not shown) from a server 10 of a POcompany #1, weather.com might place a weather.com cookie on a visitor'scomputer 20 marking the visitor as interested in “travel” (profilecategory “A”) and indicating that the profile originated with PO company#1. Later, if and when the weather.com ad server (MP2) recognizes thatthe same visitor 20 had happened to visit weather.com's site(weather.com can recognize the visitor by reading its own weather.comcookie), the weather.com ad server (MP2) can choose to deliver atravel-related ad 30 to the visitor 20 within the weather.com ad space.The weather.com ad server's decision whether or not to deliver thetravel-related ad will usually depend on the price the ad is expected tobring when compared with the price for other ads available forweather.com to display within the same weather.com ad space.

In step 6, the information received by the PO company might be receivedfrom the media property electronically 40, via e-mail, in a file on a CDsent by mail, or in any other form. That said, because the goal is tomake profiles available to media properties on a large scale, it wouldbe beneficial to demand the least complex approach from mediaproperties. After all, the more complex the tracking system that themedia properties must implement to track their usage of profiles, themore difficult it will be for them to use profiles that they do not own.

One implementation—where the media property is required to give onlyminimal effort to track its usage of profiles—is merely asking a mediaproperty to provide the PO company server 10, every time that the mediaproperty (MP2) serves an ad based on a profile from the PO company, withaccess to the visitor 20 viewing an ad 30 based on the PO company'sprofile (e.g., in TagC). Such access, in that implementation, could beachieved by simply having the media property integrate into everyprofile-based ad it delivers a 1×1 pixel that will redirect (alsodenoted by 40 in FIG. 2) the visitor 20, when viewing the ad 30 (at timet2), to the PO company server 10. Such a 1×1 pixel can point to a URLgiven to the media property by the PO company that is unique to acertain kind or category of profiles (so the PO company could recognizenot only the fact that the media property used a profile but also thekind of profile used). The advantage of this implementation is that thePO company is the one that records the profile usage, and the mediaproperty does not have to do anything further to keep or transferrecords.

In the same implementation, in cases where the PO company hastransferred more than one kind of profiles to a media property (forexample, profiles “A” indicating interest in travel and profiles “B”indicating interest in autos), the media property can send the POcompany, along with the access to the visitor viewing an ad, anindication of which profile the media property used to deliver the adcurrently being viewed by the visitor. In that implementation, a travelprofile will be indicated by the media property's use of a first URL toredirect the visitor to the PO company server, an auto profile will beindicated by the media property's use of a second URL to redirect thevisitor to the PO company server, etc. (The different URLs for differentkind of profiles would be ones given to the media property by the POcompany.)

Because different kind of profiles might have different rates (a travelprofile might fetch $2 CPM, auto profiles might fetch $5 CPM, etc.), itis important to know which of the profiles the media property used.Also, if the PO company is acting as a databank, it might have differentways in which it compensates profile suppliers for their collectedprofiles.

Based on its profile collection and compensation policy, the PO companycan decide which profile suppliers to credit for the delivery of aprofile-based ad by a media property. For example, the PO company mightdecide that, for behavioral profiles, time is important, so only thelast profile supplier to report a behavioral profile of a visitor(before an ad based on that profile is served to the visitor) will becompensated but any other profile suppliers that provided the same kindof profile information about the same visitor earlier will not becompensated.

The following example illustrates the above-described embodiment.Suppose a visitor 20 searches for airline tickets on three differentsites (PS1, PS2, and PSn), and all three sites delivered the visitor 20to the PO company server 10 along with the information that the visitorsearched for an airline ticket. Suppose further that the PO company hasrecognized that the Yahoo! site (MP2 is Yahoo! this time) is interestedin receiving travel (“A”) profiles and therefore has redirected (notshown) the visitor 20 to Yahoo! on three different occasions along withthe information that the visitor searched for an airline ticket; thatis, each time the PO company server 10 itself received access to thevisitor 20 following a redirect from a profile supplier (PS1, PS2, orPSn), it immediately redirected the visitor to Yahoo!, because itrecognized the visitor 20 as interested in “travel” (in this example,according to a definition that recognizes a visitor as interested in“travel” after only one search for an airline ticket).

Later (time t2), when the visitor 20 chooses to visit yahoo.com (MP2) onhis or her own accord, Yahoo! recognizes the profiled visitor 20 anddelivers a travel-related ad 30 to the visitor 20; however, Yahoo! hasthat opportunity only after Yahoo! has received the profile about thevisitor 20 from the PO company three times. If Yahoo! has integratedinto the travel ad 30 delivered to the visitor 20 a 1×1 pixelredirecting the visitor 20 to the PO company, the visitor's browser,when fetching the ad from the Yahoo! ad server (MP2), also approachesthe PO company server 10. The PO company server 10 learns, from the URLthat the visitor's browser is using to access it, that Yahoo! (MP2) hasserved a travel-related ad 30 to the visitor 20.

Based on that information, the PO company records (in data store 13) acharge of two tenths of a cent to Yahoo! (in this example, $2 CPM, or $2per 1,000, is the rate the PO company charges for travel-related (“A”)ads delivered based on travel profiles provided by the PO company to amedia property).

The PO company stores, as part of the visitor's profile, data indicatingwhich profile suppliers provided profiles about the visitor and the dateand time the profiles were supplied. The PO company stores the profile(1) in the tag (a cookie, for example), (2) along the tag, (3) in acentral database (e.g., 13), in which case the tag is used as a linkbetween the visitor's computer and the profile information in thedatabase, or (4) in all of those places.

Note that the PO company's tag is different from the identified mediaproperty's tag. The PO company's tag is used to uniquely identify avisitor about which the PO company has a profile, where the profileitself includes the profile suppliers that provided the profile, thedates and times they have done so, and possibly other information, allpart of the visitor's profile definition. The identified mediaproperty's tag is used by the media property to recognize the profile ofthe visitor.

The PO company uses its own tag to access the visitor profile and learnwhich profile supplier (PS1, PS2, or PSn) was the last one to supply thetravel-related (“A”) profile (the visitor's search for airline tickets),which Yahoo! (MP2) used to deliver the ad. The PO company then records(also, e.g., in 13) a credit of one tenth of a cent (half of the chargeto Yahoo!) to that profile supplier. In this example, a revenue share of50%-50% between the profile supplier and the PO company is used. If thePO company had agreed with the profile supplier on a 40% revenue share,the profile supplier would have been given a credit of eight hundredthsof a cent ($2/1000*40%), or if the profile supplier was promised $0.001for every use of its profile, the PO company would have recorded acredit of $0.001 to the profile supplier.

In a second illustration, the PO company might decide that a visitorshould be considered interested in “travel” only if the visitor searchesfor airline tickets three different times within a week, on the samesite or different sites. In that case, only when the visitor isrecognized as interested in “travel” according to that definition willthe PO company make the visitor's “travel” profile available to mediaproperties (MP2) interested in “travel” (“A”) profiles. In this example,if a first profile supplier PS1 delivers the visitor 20 and theinformation (Pr1) that the visitor 20 is searching for airline ticketson Sunday, a second profile supplier PS2 delivers the visitor 20 to thePO company 10 on Monday along with the information (Pr2) that thevisitor 20 is searching for airline tickets, and the first profilesupplier PS1 again delivers the visitor 20 to the PO company 10 onWednesday along with the information (not shown) that the visitor 20 issearching for airline tickets, then only at that time on Wednesday willthe PO company's server 10 recognize the visitor 20 as a “travel” (“A”)visitor and redirect (not shown) the visitor's computer 20 to Yahoo!(MP2).

In that second illustration, when Yahoo! (MP2) serves a travel-relatedad 30 to the visitor 20 and redirects (40) the visitor 20 to the POcompany 10, the PO company might credit (in 13) the first profilesupplier PS1 with two thirtieths of a cent ($2/1000*50%*2/3) and thesecond profile supplier PS2 with one thirtieth of a cent($2/1000*50%*1/3). In other words, in that illustration, (a) Yahoo!agreed to pay $2 for every thousand travel-related ads delivered basedon profiles provided by the PO company, (b) the PO company promised togive profile suppliers half of the revenues the PO company generatesfrom ads delivered by media properties based on the profiles it makesavailable to them, and (c) the visitor was recognized as interested in“travel” thanks to two visits (out of the three visits to travel sitesthat defined the visitor as interested in “travel”) made to the firstprofile supplier's site and one visit to the second profile supplier'ssite. Therefore, the first profile supplier is entitled to two thirds ofthe amount due to the profile suppliers altogether, and the one visitmade by the visitor to the second profile supplier's site entitles thesecond profile supplier to one third of the amount due to the profilesuppliers altogether.

Alternatively, the PO company—when making a profile available to a mediaproperty by arranging for placement of a tag readable by the identifiedmedia property—can add a unique ID to the profile (or to the tag incases where the tag is used by the media property to recognize thevisitor's profile) and ask the media property to report the ID back tothe PO company whenever the media property uses the transferred profile.The PO company can use the unique ID to record in its database theprofile suppliers that will be entitled to a credit when the mediaproperty delivers ads based on the transferred profile. The mediaproperty could report 40 to the PO company (at the end of the month, forexample) the number of ads it has served, for each unique ID. Becauseeach unique ID represents a kind of profile, the PO company will knowwhat rate it should charge the media property for usage of the profile,and because the unique ID also tells the PO company which profilesuppliers should be entitled to a credit for the usage of a profile, thePO company can also credit the deserving profile suppliers.

The media property might pay the PO company for every ad impressiondelivered based on the received profile or only when an action takesplace that is connected to the ad (perhaps occurring on the advertiser'ssite immediately following a click on the ad or perhaps occurring a fewdays after viewing the ad or clicking the ad), such as a click on thead, a registration on the advertiser's site, a request for information,a product acquisition, or the making of a phone call.

Different implementations might be chosen depending on the relativesizes of a profile owner (in terms of number of profiled visitors; notethat the profile owner may also be a databank) and a media property (interms of number of visitors). In cases where the media property has manyvisitors and is considered to have an extensive reach (“reach” is afigure used to express the percentage of the population using a mediathat visits the media property; for example, Valueclick, a web-based adnetwork of sites reaches 80% of the US web population), a profile ownermight transfer to the media property all visitors within the categoriesrequested by the media property, because the probability of finding aprofiled visitor within the media property's ad space is high (in thecase of Valueclick, the probability is 80%).

In cases where the media property's reach is not very significant, butthe profile owner has a relatively large number of profiles, the mediaproperty may choose to make its visitors accessible to the profile ownerto check whether the profile owner can enhance the profiles of some ofits visitors, in the ad categories of interest to the media property,instead of having the profile owner send all of its visitors in thecategories of interest, because, as a result of the media property's lowreach, only a small percentage of visitors sent to the media property bythe profile owner will later choose to visit the low-reach mediaproperty.

Public Notice Regarding the Scope of the Invention and Claims

The inventor considers various elements of the aspects and methodsrecited in the claims filed with the application as advantageous,perhaps even critical to certain implementations of the invention.However, the inventor regards no particular element as being“essential,” except as set forth expressly in any particular claim.

Although the invention has been described in terms of preferredembodiments and generally associated methods, the inventor contemplatesthat alterations and permutations of the preferred embodiments andmethods will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a readingof the specification and a study of the drawings.

I claim:
 1. A method implemented using a hardware computer systemprogrammed to provide collected profiles comprising: (a) responsive toreceiving profile information about a visitor who electronicallyaccessed equipment of a profile supplier, with the computer systemautomatically selecting an electronic-advertising-space-controllingentity that has identified a URL, which selection is based on acomparison of the profile information received about the visitor with apreviously received request for specific profiles or kinds of profilesof interest to the entity, which request is stored in the computersystem; (b) with the computer system automatically arranging forelectronic storage of a tag that is associated with the visitor and thatis readable by electronic-advertising-space-controlling equipment,controlled by the selected entity, which equipment is accessible via adomain specified in the URL identified by the selected entity; (c) afterparts (a) and (b), with the computer system electronically receiving areport from the selected entity containing information about usage ofprofile data about the visitor, including the profile informationreceived in part (a), in association with an electronic access by thecomputer of the profiled visitor to the equipment of the selectedentity; (d) based on the report, with the computer system recording anamount owed by the selected entity for usage of the profile data; and(e) with the computer system calculating fees owed to a plurality ofprofile suppliers based on respective contributions of said profilesuppliers to the profile data identified in the report as having beenused.
 2. The method of claim 1 wherein part (a) comprises automaticallyselecting a plurality of electronic-advertising-space-controllingentities, each of which has identified respective URLs, which selectionis based on a comparison of the profile information received about thevisitor with each request of a set of requests, at least one of whichrequests was previously received from each of the respective entities,each request being for specific profiles or kinds of profiles, whichrequests are stored in the computer system.
 3. The method of claim 1wherein performing part (a) responsive to receiving profile informationabout the visitor who, with a computer, electronically accessedequipment of the profile supplier comprises performing part (a)responsive to receiving the profile information as a result of URLredirection from a website that is served by a computer comprising theprofile supplier equipment, which website is accessed by the computer ofthe visitor.
 4. The method of claim 1 wherein part (a) further compriseswith the computer system categorizing the profile information receivedabout the visitor into a category of profiles.
 5. The method of claim 1further comprising with the computer system recording a fee to theprofile supplier in exchange for the profile information received fromthe profile supplier.
 6. The method of claim 1 wherein the tag comprisespersonally identifiable information identifying the visitor.
 7. Themethod of claim 1 wherein automatically arranging for electronic storageof the tag comprises arranging for electronic storage of the profileinformation in the tag.
 8. The method of claim 1 wherein automaticallyarranging for electronic storage of the tag comprises arranging forelectronic storage of the profile information in a database locatablethrough the tag.
 9. The method of claim 1 wherein automaticallyarranging for electronic storage of the tag comprises automaticredirection to the URL provided by the selected entity to place acomputer of the visitor in communication with computer equipmentcontrolled by the selected entity to enable tagging of the computer ofthe visitor.
 10. The method of claim 1 wherein the report containsinformation about usage of the profile data in association with aprofile-based advertisement electronically delivered to the computer ofthe profiled visitor by the equipment of the selected entity.
 11. Themethod of claim 10 wherein receiving the report comprises electronicallycommunicating with the computer of the visitor via URL redirection fromthe equipment of the selected entity when the equipment of the selectedentity utilizes the profile data to deliver an electronic advertisementto the computer of the visitor.
 12. The method of claim 11 wherein theURL redirection occurs in accordance with a redirection instructionincorporated into the advertisement.
 13. The method of claim 1 whereinthe equipment of the profile supplier operates in the Internet and theequipment of the selected entity utilizes the profile data to causedelivery of electronic advertisements on a television of the visitor.14. The method of claim 1 wherein part (a) comprises automaticallyselecting an electronic-advertising-space-controlling entity based on acomparison of the profile information received about the visitor with aplurality of requests, previously received from the entity, each requestbeing for a specific profile or kind of profiles.
 15. The method ofclaim 14 wherein the report further contains information identifyingwhich profile or kind of profiles the equipment of the selected entityused in connection with usage of the profile data.
 16. The method ofclaim 1: (i) wherein performing part (a) responsive to receiving profileinformation about the visitor who, with a computer, electronicallyaccessed equipment of the profile supplier comprises performing part (a)responsive to receiving the profile information as a result of URLredirection from a website that is served by a computer comprising theprofile supplier equipment, which website is accessed by the computer ofthe visitor; (ii) wherein part (a) further comprises with the computersystem categorizing the profile information received about the visitorinto a category of profiles; (iii) wherein part (a) comprisesautomatically selecting a plurality ofelectronic-advertising-space-controlling entities, each of which hasidentified respective URLs, which selection is based on a comparison ofthe profile information received about the visitor with each request ofa set of requests, at least one of which requests was previouslyreceived from each of the respective entities, each request being forspecific profiles or kinds of profiles, which requests are stored in thecomputer system; and (iv) wherein the report contains information aboutusage of the profile data in association with a profile-basedadvertisement electronically delivered to the computer of the profiledvisitor by the equipment of the selected entity.
 17. A machinecomprising a hardware computer system comprising a computer serverprogrammed to implement a method for providing collected profilescomprising: (a) responsive to receiving profile information about avisitor who electronically accessed equipment of a profile supplier,with the computer server automatically selecting anelectronic-advertising-space-controlling entity that has identified aURL, which selection is based on a comparison of the profile informationreceived about the visitor with a previously received request forspecific profiles or kinds of profiles of interest to the entity, whichrequest is stored in the machine; (b) with the machine automaticallyarranging for electronic storage of a tag that is associated with thevisitor and that is readable by electronic-advertising-space-controllingequipment, controlled by the selected entity, which equipment isaccessible via a domain specified in the URL identified by the selectedentity; (c) after parts (a) and (b), with the machine electronicallyreceiving a report from the selected entity containing information aboutusage of profile data about the visitor, including the profileinformation received in part (a), in association with an electronicaccess by the computer of the profiled visitor to the equipment of theselected entity; (d) based on the report, with the machine recording anamount owed by the selected entity for usage of the profile data; and(e) with the machine calculating fees owed to a plurality of profilesuppliers based on respective contributions of said profile suppliers tothe profile data identified in the report as having been used.
 18. Themachine of claim 17 wherein the computer server is further programmed toimplement a method for providing collected profiles: (i) whereinperforming part (a) responsive to receiving profile information aboutthe visitor who, with a computer, electronically accessed equipment ofthe profile supplier comprises performing part (a) responsive toreceiving the profile information as a result of URL redirection from awebsite that is served by a computer comprising the profile supplierequipment, which website is accessed by the computer of the visitor;(ii) wherein part (a) further comprises with the machine categorizingthe profile information received about the visitor into a category ofprofiles; and (iii) wherein part (a) comprises automatically selecting aplurality of electronic-advertising-space-controlling entities, each ofwhich has identified respective URLs, which selection is based on acomparison of the profile information received about the visitor witheach request of a set of requests, at least one of which requests waspreviously received from each of the respective entities, each requestbeing for specific profiles or kinds of profiles, which requests arestored in the machine.
 19. A method of causing delivery of electronicadvertisements based on requested profiles comprising: (a)electronically providing, for storage at a hardware computer systemcontrolled by a profile owner company, (i) a request for specificprofiles or kinds of profiles of interest, and (ii) a URL; (b) whereinthe profile owner computer system is programmed: (i) to automaticallyselect an electronic-advertising-space-controlling entity that hasidentified a URL, which selection is based on a comparison of (A)profile information about a visitor who electronically accessedelectronic apparatus of a profile supplier with (B) stored requests forprofiles or kinds of profiles, and (ii) to automatically arrange forelectronic storage of a tag that is associated with the visitor and thatis readable by electronic-advertising-space-controlling equipment, whichequipment is controlled by the selected entity and accessible via adomain specified in the URL provided by the selected entity; and (c)later, with the equipment, automatically checking electronic devices ofa multitude of visitors accessing the equipment via the domain for thetag readable by the equipment and, when found, automatically causingdelivery of a profile-dependent electronic advertisement to the taggedvisitor devices; and (d) after parts (a) and (c), automatically with theequipment: (i) electronically reporting information about delivery ofthe advertisement to the tagged visitor devices, which report isprovided to the profile owner company and identifies to the profileowner company profile data about the tagged visitors used in associationwith delivery of the advertisement; and (ii) recording the amount of afee owed to the profile owner company as a result of delivery of theadvertisement to the tagged visitor devices; (e) wherein the profileowner computer system is further programmed to calculate fees owed bythe profile owner to a plurality of profile suppliers based onrespective contributions of said profile suppliers to profileinformation reported to the profile owner company as having been used inassociation with delivery of the advertisement.
 20. The method of claim19 further comprising, after part (a) and before part (c), with theequipment automatically tagging a device of the visitor that is acomputer that has accessed the equipment as a result of URL redirectionfrom the profile owner computer system.
 21. The method of claim 20wherein electronically reporting comprises automatically placing thetagged visitor devices that are computers in communication with theprofile owner computer system via URL redirection from the equipment ofthe selected entity when the equipment utilizes the profile informationto cause delivery of the advertisement.
 22. The method of claim 21wherein URL redirection comprises delivering an advertisement containinga redirection instruction.
 23. The method of claim 19 wherein the act ofautomatically causing delivery of a profile-dependent electronicadvertisement in part (c) is performed only when a price for delivery ofthe profile-dependent electronic advertisement to the tagged visitordevices is higher than a price for delivery to the tagged visitordevices of a first advertisement based on content adjacent to theadvertising space into which the first advertisement is delivered.